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The Habits of Happiness

Matthieu Ricard | 20:57

Transcript

So, I guess this is a result of globalization that you can find Coca Cola tins on top of Everest and Buddhist monk in Monterey. 


And so I just came two days ago from the Himalayas, to your kind invitation. So I would like to invite you also for a while to the Himalayas themself. And to show the place where meditators, like me will begin with being a molecular biologist in Pasteur Institute, and found their way to the mountains. So these are a few images I was lucky to take as Hanby there. This demand Kailash in eastern Tibet wonderful setting. This is for Marlboro country

turquoise Lake meditator.


This is the hottest day of the year somewhere in eastern Tibet on August 1, and the night before we camped, and my Tibetan friends said we're going to sleep outside. I say why we have enough space in the tent to say yes, it is summertime.


So now we are going to speak of happiness. As a freshman, I must say that there are a lot of French intellectuals that since the happiness is not at all interesting. An essay on happiness and there was a controversy and someone wrote an article saying don't impose on us the dirty work of happiness. We don't care about being happy. 


We need to live with passion, relaxed happens downs of life. We like our suffering because it's so good when it sees for a while. This is what I see from the balcony of my hermitage in in the Himalayas. It's about two meters by three and you are all welcome anytime. Now let's come to happiness or well being. And first of all, you know, despite what the French intellectuals say, it seems that no one wakes up in the morning thinking. 


May I suffer the whole day. Which means that somehow, consciously or not, directly or indirectly, in the short and the long term. Whatever we do whatever we hope, whatever we dream, somehow is related to a deep profound desire for well being or happiness. As Pascal said, even the one who hangs himself somehow is looking for a cessation of suffering, he finds no other way. 


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